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Pakistani judge returns home

Deposed Pakistani supreme court chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, center, is escorted by lawyers as he leaves his residence in Quetta, Pakistan, yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

Pakistan's deposed top judge, who has became a focus for opposition to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, got a hero's welcome in his hometown of Quetta yesterday at the beginning of a tour of the country to meet lawyers.

Former Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and nine others were freed from nearly five months of house arrest last week on the orders of new Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

"I'm happy coming home after 18 months. Quetta is my hometown," Chaudhry said as he got off a flight from the Islamabad.

Chaudhry and dozens of his colleagues seen as hostile to former army chief Musharraf's re-election as president in October were dismissed in early November when Musharraf imposed a six-week period of emergency rule.

Chaudhry was detained at his home in Islamabad until last week.

"By staging a marvelous welcome we want to send a message to the dictator, that the chief justice is the most popular person in Pakistan, wholeheartedly supported by the masses," said Ali Ahmed Kurd, a veteran lawyers' leader and Chaudhry supporter. "The judiciary must be restored."

Musharraf swore in 24 members of Gilani's Cabinet yesterday, 11 of whom were from assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's party

Leaders of the two coalition parties, Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari and Sharif, have promised to reinstate Chaudhry and his colleagues through a parliamentary resolution within 30 days of forming a government.

But that is likely to trigger a show-down between the new government and the president, who will be worried the judges, if reinstated, would take up challenges to him that could see his October re-election ruled unconstitutional.

About 500 political activists waving party flags and black-suited lawyers thronged Quetta's small airport shouting "long live the chief justice" and "Go Musharraf, go."

They showered Chaudhry with rose petals as he came out of the airport terminal.

More supporters were waiting outside the airport.

Security was tight with police carrying automatic rifles standing by and at least three armored personnel carriers at the airport.

Aitzaz Ahsan, a fierce critic of Musharraf and Chaudhry's main lawyer, said Chaudhry's supporters would not organize protests to press for Chaudhry's reinstatement but would wait for the government to keep its promise to reappoint the judges.

"If the judges are restored within 30 days then the movement will obviously end. But if not, this movement will continue,"Ahsan said.
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